wow Everything Coming in the Shadowlands Pre-Patch

[Stan 5,021]

In this post, we've recapped everything that's coming in the Shadowlands pre-patch.

If you're looking for what's going away in the pre-patch, please read our pre-Shadowlands to-do guide.

Release Date

Currently, we do not know the official release date of the Shadowlands pre-patch. Our wild guess would be early October 2020 with Shadowlands launching early-to-mid November.

Allied Races

• It will be significantly easier to unlock Allied Races starting with the pre-patch, as reputation requirements will be removed for all Allied Races.

Classes

• All the core-class updates planned for Shadowlands will go live with the pre-patch.
• Death Knights will start at Level 8 and Demon Hunters at Level 10 in the new expansion. You can find more details about both here.

We're keeping track of all class changes throughout Shadowlands Alpha/Beta testing, and you can find them below.

Death Knight	Mage	Rogue
Death Knight 9.0.1 Class Changes	Mage 9.0.1 Class Changes	Rogue 9.0.1 Class Changes
Demon Hunter	Monk	Shaman
Demon Hunter 9.0.1 Class Changes	Monk 9.0.1 Class Changes	Shaman 9.0.1 Class Changes
Druid	Paladin	Warlock
Druid 9.0.1 Class Changes	Paladin 9.0.1 Class Changes	Warlock 9.0.1 Class Changes
Hunter	Priest	Warrior
Hunter 9.0.1 Class Changes	Priest 9.0.1 Class Changes	Warrior 9.0.1 Class Changes

Hunters

• The stable slot size will be drastically increased.
• Hunters will be able to tame cloud serpents, including Elegon.

Corruption

• The system will be entirely removed in the pre-patch; all Preserved Contaminants will become obsolete and turn into gray items.

Character Customization

• You will get access to the all-new customization options in the Shadowlands pre-patch.
• You will be able to change your gender in the Barber Shop.
• Druids will be able to customize their forms independently of their Artifact weapons in the Barber Shop.
• Blizzard also relaxed transmog restrictions on Legion Artifacts, you can now dual-wield the same weapon, transmog weapon and off-hand separately, and more.

Leveling

• The squish is in, and all level 120 players will be scaled down to level 50. The squish also applies to all numbers, including damage, healing, and item levels.
• The new leveling system is available in the pre-patch. Veteran players will be able to talk to Chromie and select an expansion for leveling in the 10-50 range.
• Exile's Reach, the New Player Experience, becomes available along with new HD weapon models.
• Heirlooms will no longer offer XP bonuses, but different perks that you can find on our leveling overview page. 
• Leveling potions will no longer work, except for Draught of Ten Lands.

Mentor System

• There's a new mentor system coming in the pre-patch, which allows you to become a guide and help new players by answering questions in the Newcomer chat. More details on the system and its requirements can be found here.

Pre-Patch Event

• The limited-time Scourge Invasion will be enabled until the launch of Shadowlands.
  • Shadowlands Pre-Patch Event: Week 1 Overview
  • Shadowlands Pre-Patch Event: Week 2 Overview

Mounts

• Unicorn or horse mounts can fly in the Shadowlands.
• All Gladiator mounts will become account-wide.

Options

• Ray-traced shadows will become available.
• Accessibility settings for motion sickness will be added.
• Gamepad support is coming to the game.

Transmogrification

• Wands can be transmogged into other weapon types.

UI

• Blizzard has completely overhauled the character customization screen and added fancy class animations, round icons, and more.

• The new in-game navigation improvements will go live.

[Dejo93 984]

Is it just me or is the character customization not finished for all races? Look at the Tauren for example. They still have the same face choices. The only race with new face options so far are Humans. Does that mean that more will be added during SL?

[Lithari 194]

I don't plan to use heirlooms to be honest, they are rather *filtered* and utterly useless now....the set bonuses are crap and will only be seen as useful to casual players who actually get a decent amount of rest xp, i never get any, or hardly any and the explosion on level up is useless too, since you tend to level 90% of the time in town and not when fighting.

I would suggest increasing stats by 10% or something, that way it would be useful, otherwise, when pre-patch goes live, heirlooms will not really be used at all.

[Mugendai 48]

23 minutes ago, Lithari said:

I don't plan to use heirlooms to be honest, they are rather *filtered* and utterly useless now....the set bonuses are crap and will only be seen as useful to casual players who actually get a decent amount of rest xp, i never get any, or hardly any and the explosion on level up is useless too, since you tend to level 90% of the time in town and not when fighting.

I would suggest increasing stats by 10% or something, that way it would be useful, otherwise, when pre-patch goes live, heirlooms will not really be used at all.

Why would you need increaed stats by 10% ? Heirlooms are already very well stated for their item level, it's already a bonus in itself

[Krimzin 60]

I truly believe we will have the answers on Aug 27th. I think we will see prepatch on Sept 15th, and Shadowlands on Oct 20th. Knowing how Blizzard works and how much of a *filtered* show every release has been, that released during a holiday month, they wont do it again. BFA is already going to be the longest running Expansion in the history of WoW. Next closest was 2yr and 19 days if I recall correctly. Not to mention they are are hemorrhaging  subscriptions atm, they want to get people back in the game.

[Lithari 194]

2 hours ago, Mugendai said:

Why would you need increaed stats by 10% ? Heirlooms are already very well stated for their item level, it's already a bonus in itself

Nah, with the Gold i paid to upgrade it, it should be better than it is....cause the set bonuses it has in the PTR and the beta is rubbish....an insult actually. it could have a 2% stat increase per 2-piece up to 10%...then it would be cool until you replace them at the higher levels.

Also, i have seen quest rewards better, that is the problem, heirlooms should be better while leveling up....alot better than they are right now.

[GBeast 33]

what do pre existing characters that aren't level capped do? do we still get to choose where we level?

[Valhalen 1,484]

10 hours ago, Dejo93 said:

Is it just me or is the character customization not finished for all races? Look at the Tauren for example. They still have the same face choices. The only race with new face options so far are Humans. Does that mean that more will be added during SL?

Kul Tirans got no new customizations either, as far as I can tell.

[Bobbis 208]

11 hours ago, Lithari said:

Nah, with the Gold i paid to upgrade it, it should be better than it is....cause the set bonuses it has in the PTR and the beta is rubbish....an insult actually. it could have a 2% stat increase per 2-piece up to 10%...then it would be cool until you replace them at the higher levels.

Also, i have seen quest rewards better, that is the problem, heirlooms should be better while leveling up....alot better than they are right now.

Agree on the stats side, they do seem a little rubbish, more like greens than blues... but the gold payment thing is a fallacy for most. We paid for looms as they were, and got a fair chunk of use out of them. Multiple times for most of them too if you've played across multiple expansions. Now that xp bonus is baked into the game essentially, making levelling quicker for all and the purpose of hierlooms shifts from xp gainz to QoL change only. You can keep a tmog the whole way now, or not have to worry about finding and replacing gear all the time.

The set bonuses are shite but they might be altered (read doubt they will be), but they're still useful. My biggest gripe in truth is they still need upgrading... at this point in time that's a waste, just inc the cost of looms and have them go 1-50 as a base.

[Lithari 194]

10 hours ago, Bobbis said:

Agree on the stats side, they do seem a little rubbish, more like greens than blues... but the gold payment thing is a fallacy for most. We paid for looms as they were, and got a fair chunk of use out of them. Multiple times for most of them too if you've played across multiple expansions. Now that xp bonus is baked into the game essentially, making levelling quicker for all and the purpose of hierlooms shifts from xp gainz to QoL change only. You can keep a tmog the whole way now, or not have to worry about finding and replacing gear all the time.

The set bonuses are shite but they might be altered (read doubt they will be), but they're still useful. My biggest gripe in truth is they still need upgrading... at this point in time that's a waste, just inc the cost of looms and have them go 1-50 as a base.

I am gonna stick with my original thought, which is 'they will suck in the expansion.'

[Ogerscherge 43]

15 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Kul Tirans got no new customizations either, as far as I can tell.

I would even go a step further and claim that no allied race got new costumizations. Apart from the bald hairstyle for females, which everyone got of course.

They probably thought that these races are still pretty new and may not need an update yet. Not sure I'd agree though, as High Mountain Tauren, for example, now seem really bland when compared to their brethren from Kalimdor. ?

But hey, there's still time. Maybe they add a few things for the allied races as well yet.

[Valhalen 1,484]

5 hours ago, Ogerscherge said:

I would even go a step further and claim that no allied race got new costumizations. Apart from the bald hairstyle for females, which everyone got of course.

They probably thought that these races are still pretty new and may not need an update yet. Not sure I'd agree though, as High Mountain Tauren, for example, now seem really bland when compared to their brethren from Kalimdor. ?

But hey, there's still time. Maybe they add a few things for the allied races as well yet.

But all races are getting stuff like tattoos and other *filtered*. Kul Tirans sure could benefit from fancy stuff like that. Seafare-themed tattoos and earrings would be awesome.

[Whispersong 0]

Hi.  After this weekly reset there's no sign of another Shadowlands  convenant  shot movie, so I presume this means one week delay in pre patch launch. We still have 2 shorts to see so, imho, we might see the pre patch overlaping Octoberfest so that the zombie invasion hit in a moment of  crowding in big cities for the yearly beer fest.
What do you think?